For full disclosure, I haven’t fully read Hipster Christianity yet – just extended excerpts (thank you Amazon “look inside”), summaries and reviews and articles and blog posts McCracken has written. I don’t know McCracken, but I do have to say that discovering recently on his blog that he was a fellow Wheaton College grad who lived in Traber dorm (a stereotype that only fellow Wheaties will understand) helped clarify his cultural influences for me as well as explain his obsession with C.S. Lewis (who at Wheaton was referred to as St. Jack or “the fourth member of the Trinity). But I did take his “are you a Christian hipster?” quiz, which of course told me I was a hipster. From what I could tell anyone who isn’t fundamentalist or Amish and has a pulse in the 21st century would be labeled “hipster” according to the quiz – including McCracken himself who seems far cooler than I will ever be. As I’ve mentioned numerous times before, I am the definition of uncool. I have no sense of style, I don’t know how to do my hair, I don’t listen to music, I am not artistic, I’m a freaking stay-at-home (mostly) mom for crying out loud. But apparently (according to McCracken) since I read non-male/white/Western theologians, think the church should discuss something as important as sex, attend a church that meets in a warehouse and uses candles, like Stephen Colbert and Lady Gaga, believe we can learn truth from literature and film (I got the same Wheaton College English degree as McCracken after all), desire to steward God’s creation, and think oppression, human trafficking, and modern day slavery are wrong I am a self-centered hipster and therefore in danger of compromising my faith for the sake of being cool.

And so once again I state, “Seriously? You’ve got to be kidding, right?” The logic there is so horrible I don’t even know where to begin. I’m struggling to tell if he is just another one of those Christians who lashes out at anyone who has a different faith journey than him (and I’m sure he would poke fun of me using the term “faith journey”), or if he is truly ignorant of how deeply rooted in faith much of the stuff he criticizes actually is (or if this is a disguised theological attack that chooses not to use theology). I just don’t know. I don’t deny that the people he describes exist, or that there are people who desperately just try to be cool. But why he feels this obsessive need to label and therefore dismiss entire sections of the church who are simply trying to faithfully follow Jesus is beyond me.

Why is the conversion of the girl who had her perspective changed by the art history prof in college who now creates non-Thomas Kinkade Christian art as part of worship more suspect as being inauthentic or not truly Christian than the drug dealer who read a Chick-tract and now works in a soup kitchen? Is God not working for transformation in her life too? Or why is believing that Kwok Pui-lan, or Musa Dube, or Richard Twiss, or Gustavo Gutierrez might have something to teach us any different than believing we can learn from C.S. Lewis, or Francis Schaeffer, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer? Or why is the guy who wears thrift store or fairly made clothes more in danger of having caring too much about his appearance interfere with his spirituality than the youth pastor who spends hours describing to his group (in great detail) the exact sorts of bathing suits or the exact width of shoulder straps the pretty young high school girls are allowed to wear during summer camp? Or for that matter than the middle-aged women who have self-appointed themselves the modesty police or even Richard Foster who devotes a large section of Celebration of Discipline to the clothes Christians should wear? Why is it okay for their ideas about appearance to be faith-based and biblically-sound, but not the so-called hipster’s? Why are emerging forms of spirituality automatically suspect as being more culturally influenced and therefore harmful to Christianity than those that emerged twenty or thirty years ago?

I know I am not a creature independent of my culture. No one is. Anyone who claims otherwise needs some serious re-education. But to claim that we so-called hipster Christians are the way we are simply because we are self-centered “all about me” folks who are trying to be cool and relevant utterly misses the point. I attend a church of broken misfits who are desperately trying to live faithfully. I don’t attend my church because we are so cool that we meet in a warehouse and sit on couches, I attend it for the community that has formed around each other in that particular environment. Sure the environment influences who we are, but it isn’t the sum of who we are – just like gathering by a river or in the catacombs or sitting in pews or a cathedral influences but doesn’t not ultimately define other churches. I don’t read postcolonial voices because that makes me relevant; I read them because I believe the body of Christ cannot survive without all its parts. I don’t buy fair trade because it’s trendy; I buy it because the Bible tells me to care for the poor and to not cheat a worker of his wages. I don’t fight human trafficking because it makes me feel good, I do it because it is wrong that six year old girls are kidnapped and forced into prostitution where they are repeatedly raped by men who have a sick and twisted view of women and sex (two topics that churches apparently should avoid discussing because they are just trendy shock-gimmicks). (And by the way, when we’ve reached the point in the conversation where people are questioning opposing the enslaving of children as sex toys because it might be too trendy and relevant of a topic then I’m done with that conversation – God is nowhere in it).

I am a cultural creation, I freely admit that. But don’t for one minute project your disapproval of my culture trappings onto me and assume that I have uncritically allowed such things to put the “realness” of my faith in peril. If you want to criticize such things or suggest another type of popular culture that you think is more appropriate for Christians to embrace (cuz, we all embrace something) then do that. Let’s disagree, but for the sake of respectful and truthful dialogue please don’t naively dismiss my lived faith as merely an attempt to be cool when nothing could be further from the truth.

While the topic of truth gets a lot of air-time these days, few actually take the time to define what they are talking about or move beyond critiquing the “other side.” Franke though stays true to an evangelical affirmation of truth while at the same time thoughtfully engaging with the reality of pluralism. His nuanced approach to the discussion doesn’t rubber-stamp any extreme, but admits the complexity associated with faith and truth. And for that, I found his work to be refreshing. He admits upfront that “the expression of biblical and orthodox Christian faith is inherently and irreducibly pluralist” (7). But this isn’t an in-your-face assertion that must be swallowed whole; it is instead the idea that the whole book seeks to unpack and explore. With a faithful commitment to scripture and a tender compassion for the reader, Franke demonstrates how pluralism is not something to be feared or fought but is instead simply a beautiful intrinsic aspect of not just our faith but all creation.

I appreciated how Franke in his discussion of truth quickly moved beyond the absolute and relative dichotomies. Neither accurately represents truth as the first tries to commoditize it for the sake of power and the second deny it in the name of tolerance. Pluralism and truth are far more complex than the extreme camps allow us to admit. Our world is diverse, as is our faith. And Franke rightly points out that culture and our faith is always changing, God never leaves us where we are at, but is constantly transforming us with the gospel. The constant renewing of our minds allows us to faithfully claim traditions in the church as well as celebrate the new things God is doing. The celebration of plurality affirms the “importance of multiple perspectives in the apprehension and communication of truth” (40). Just as The Father, Son, and Spirit are one even as they are different, the church can be one while living fully into our own diversity.

I also was grateful for Franke’s assertion that we can never let our particular cultural setting trump our commitment to truth. We are situated in culture, but when we start to assume that our cultural habits are the only way to present truth, we are in fact limiting God and truth. Scripture and God cannot be subject to cultural assumptions, but must be celebrated in their plurality. Similarly, we should remember that God doesn’t seek to assimilate the Other and make us all the same either. Franke brilliantly reminds us that we can be silencing God when we do not listen to voices that might not fit our accepted cultural theological norms. He writes, “theology is not a universal language. It is situated language that reflects the goals, aspirations, and beliefs of a particular people, a particular community” (94). If we are to affirm the plurality that God affirms, we must thoughtfully seek out the diversity of theological voices. This was a poignant wake-up call for me as I too often only listen to the voices of those similar to me. I need to be striving to affirm God by affirming the truth of the many legitimate enculturations of the faith.

Manifold Witness is accessible, but it is also challenging. Franke goes places that others have avoided – not for the sake of controversy, but out of a deep desire to be faithful. His commitment to loving and serving God is apparent on every page of this book making his exploration of the plural nature of truth a gift to the Christian community. I highly recommend this book not just for those caught up in the discussion of truth, but to all Christians eager to celebrate our expansive God in the full diversity of his church.

2009 Books -

Non-fiction

• The Boundary-Breaking God by Danielle Shroyer
• We Get to Carry Each Other: The Gospel According to U2 by Greg Garrett
• Manifold Witness by John Franke
• Sacred Friendships by Robert Kellemen and Susan Ellis
• Jesus Christ for Today’s World by Jurgen Moltmann
• Last Child in the Woods By Richard Louv
• Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States By Chris Fair
• Cosmopolitanism : Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah
• A Story of Rhythm and Grace by Jimi Calhoun
• Enough by Will Samson
• The Next Evangelicalism by Soong-Chan Rah
• Mama’s Got a Fake I.D. by Caryn Dahlstrand Rivadeneira
• Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
• Sacred Encounters by Tamara Park
• Eve’s Bible by Sarah S. Forth

Fiction

• The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
• Naamah’s Kiss by Jacqueline Carey
• Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey
• Rhapsody: Child of Blood by Elizabeth Haydon
• Prophecy: Child of Blood by Elizabeth Haydon
• Destiny: Child of Sky by Elizabeth Haydon
• Requim for the Sun by Elizabeth Haydon
• Elegy for a Lost Star by Elizabeth Haydon
• The Shadow Queen by Anne Bishop
• Fortune and Fate by Sharon Shinn
• Heir to Sevenwaters by Juliet Marillier

While there are a few books on this list that I would classify in the almost to painful to read category, for the most part I enjoyed this years books. For sheer entertainment in a satirical intellectual sort of way, I would list Cuisines of the Axis of Evil as a favorite. As for books that I’ve recommended the most and mentally returned to most often I would list Mama’s Got a Fake ID and Manifold Witness. I seriously hope to expand my reading this next year – especially by reading non-majority (not white, western, or male) theological works (any recommendations would be appreciated).

So what about you – what were your favorite reads of 2009?

in the book, author Chris Fair takes a close look at the evil powerhouses in the world (i.e. those countries with the bomb or those who are trying to get it) and humanizes them with an exploration of their cuisine. From the so-called “axis of evil” (Iraq, Iran, North Korea), to nuke-possessing human-rights violators (Israel, India, and Pakistan), to the dashers of democracy (Cuba, Burma, and China), to the Great Satan herself (USA), the reader embarks on a rather peculiar world tour. Fair is unashamedly biased and opinionated, and yet manages to present a balanced perspective on many of these countries. What is extremely helpful is her brief modern histories of each country. Basically she explains why these countries hate the USA and what our past relationship with them has been. So for all of us 30-somethings who were too young to watch the news while, say, the Iran-Contra affair was unraveling, and whose history textbooks and teachers never made it past World War 2 (because what teacher wants to touch Civil Rights and the Vietnam War), these brief histories are the most concise explanations of these events you will have ever heard. One reads of the whole convoluted history of our relationship with Saddam Hussein, how the Taliban got its weapons, and why we let China walk all over us. The author doesn’t hold back – all the countries are equally criticised and celebrated at the same time. It truly is a dinner party approach where friendship has to guide all other conversations.

And I know this sounds bad, but my biggest issue with the book was in it’s treatment of the USA. Now, I have no problem pointing out our flaws. We are hardly ones to point the finger at other “evil” nations when we were the ones who funded their armies and set-up their regimes to begin with. America is far from perfect. And I appreciated the author setting the record straight that the Muslim world doesn’t hate us for our freedom, they hate us for being a bully. But in exploring other reasons why the world hates America, I think the author let her personal opinions influence her focus a bit too much. She argues that the world hates us because a majority of us are so stupid we don’t believe in evolution or at least think God might have been involved. Whatever her opinion on that issue, I highly doubt that most of the world hates us because we believe in God. If she thinks we are idiots, fine, but the argument went a bit too far in that particular case.

But in general, this provocative and satiric take on world politics was pure brilliance, and the featured cuisines were enticing. The author not only describes typical meals in each of the countries – complete with drinks and ambiance, she provides detailed recipes for a full-course dinner party. Since reading the book, I’ve tried a couple of the recipes (and can highly recommend the Margat Bamya stew from the Iraq chapter). They are easy to follow and she takes care to tell you exactly what should be happening with the food at each step and where you can go to find the more exotic ingredients listed. On the whole, I can only say that I wish all approaches to international relations were this entertaining and yummy.

I liked his distinction that this cosmopolitan sense of obligation to all tends toward a pluralistic respect of the other and not obligatory uniformity. Too often the foes of tolerance accuse us of simply desiring everyone to be the same. But it is in fact the counter-cosmopolitans who push for that uniformity. As Appiah writes, “Join us, the counter-cosmopolitans say, and we will all be sisters and brothers. But each of them plans to trample on our differences – to trample us to death, if necessary – if we will not join them” (145). When the needs and differences of the other don’t matter, or, at least, don’t matter as much as whatever particular in-group you are a part of, that sense of respectful obligation has little meaning. If your in-group is your nation, and you believe that your nation is superior to all others, then it is easy to demand that all others become like you… or else. Osama bin Laden, for example, doesn’t respect that others might not want to follow the path of glorious Allah, his vision of a perfect world is universalism through uniformity.

Cosmopolitans though prefer universalism through respectful pluralism. Instead of insisting the other become us, we allow them to be themselves. As Appiah puts it, “the cosmopolitan may be happy to abide by the Golden Rule about doing onto others … But cosmopolitans care if those others don’t want to be done unto as I would be done onto” (145). This, of course, becomes complicated when our obligations to others (to protect them from harm) conflict with that sense of respect. It is in Appiah dealing with that issue that I start to have issues with his approach to ethics.  He describes numerous ways to disagree and determine morality amidst disagreement, but in the end doesn’t give a clear answer on those issue. His conclusion is that we have moral obligations to others, we may not know the extent of those exactly, but we obviously aren’t doing anywhere enough already. Needless to say, after reading a whole book exploring our ethical obligation to strangers in a globalized world, the “just do more” conclusion was a tad lacking.

What frustrated me the most with this conclusion and entire approach was the lack of a third way approach. In describing cosmopolitans, the author seems caught with just the extremes of pluralism and fundamentalism. He repeatedly resorted to saying things like, “we just know its wrong” when faced with examples of evil. While I can respect common sense morality, it bothered me that his modernistic worldview wouldn’t allow him to accept religion aside from control or a deeper value than respect. This is where I believe the postmodern focus on justice and love makes a significant difference.

While upholding the need for respect of the other, for postmoderns that respect is guided by a deeper sense of justice or love of the other. Love can temper the religious impulse to turn others into copies of oneself and love can care for a person outside of the constraints of intellectual respect. Such things can’t be codified (although many try), but always exist in the particulars. What is just and loving will always be relative to the people involved and therefore resists hijacking by systems that control. While it may not be significant to some, there is a difference between the moral rationales of “I just know its wrong” and “because it is loving.” Justice and love serve much in the way some would desire “absolutes” to function, but they are a far cry from those rigid foundational dogmas. Justice and love are more pervasive than a so-called “firm foundation.” They are more like the ties that bind us all together – pervasive and indefinable at the same time. It is far bigger than ourselves, which, I think, in a cosmopolitan world, is what we need in order to navigate uncertain ethical interactions.

Calpurnia Virginia Tate, Callie Vee, is the only girl of seven children growing up in rural Texas at the turn of the last century. Her brothers (all named after heroes of the Texas fight for Independence) run wild, her mother takes frequent doses of her “tonic” to cope with the chaos, and her grandfather remains aloof sequestered away in his laboratory or library. And while her mother is trying to train her into a proper lady, Callie Vee would rather spend her days observing insects, collecting strange plants, and making scientific observations in her notebook. She follows her grandfather on his trips to collect specimens by the river and helps him with his experiments. She is fascinated by the natural world, incessantly wondering why it works the way it does. What she is far less interested in are the tasks like knitting socks, making dough, practicing piano, and going to school to learn decorum and handiwork. Her deepest dream that she is too afraid to even voice is to attend the University someday to become a scientist. But since the only working women she has known are schoolteachers and the switchboard operator for her town’s one telephone, she doesn’t even know if women can be scientists. The beauty of her passion for the natural world and the absurdity of the restrictions placed on her because she is a girl set the tension of the novel, which ends on a hopeful yet ambiguous note.

I like the character of Callie Vee because she fits right into her time. She isn’t a committed feminist ahead of her time, nor did the author rewrite history in order to fit a strong female personality. No, Callie Vee is simply a young girl discovering her world and her passions and running up against the constraints of gender. There is no sermonizing on the evils of sexism, just the reflection from the perspective of an 11 year old about how certain aspects of society just don’t seem fair. This isn’t an anachronistic story that has her overcoming the injustices of the world, but neither is it a defeating story about her dreams being crushed. Callie Vee, like most spunky girls, pushes her boundaries where she can and lives to the fullest otherwise.

So from a historical and feminist perspective, I loved this book. This is the sort of book I want my daughter (and son) reading. My only quibble with the book is a personal one. As much as I loved the story of a girl as a naturalist – observing and wondering at the natural world, I was disappointed that the book perpetuated the myth that there can be no congress between science and faith. Callie Vee rejects the imaginative fairy worlds she used to play at as she strives to be strictly scientific. The same holds true with religion, with the scientist in the book having given up on the church in favor of studying the world. While I know the dichotomy is accurate historically, I just wish that it wasn’t always assumed that “objective” scientists must reject imagination, faith, and mystery. Such things aren’t necessarily incompatible, we are just constantly told that they are. So it disappointed me to hear that (mildly) reaffirmed in what is otherwise a fantastic book about self-discovery, awe of nature, and strong intelligent girls. But those good aspects far outweigh that subtle message, leaving us with what is simply a good book that is a much needed addition to the world of young adult fiction.

The book is divided into two main sections. The first is an accessible exploration of the ways we have let consumeristic mindsets control who we are. And the second is a practical section that explores the areas of our lives in which we can say “enough” and provides broad suggestions for alternative ways of living. Both sections are easy to read, full of stories and examples, and do a good job of explaining ideas and trends in culture. While I personally found myself wishing for more substance in parts of the book, I found it as a whole to be a great introduction to the idea of exploring how our lives reflect what we believe.

The main call in the book is for us to live eucharistic lives. Living eucharistically “is to find ourselves in a community of others seeking the same, seeking to follow God in the way of Jesus.”. But instead of living radically in that way, Will argues that we make do on low-cost, low-commitment substitutes. We exchange Christian community for the easy “personal decision for Christ.” We exchange the command of stewardship for a “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die get raptured” theology. We have failed to realize that what we do, where we live, and what we buy reflects our theology. Will reminds us though that our lives are a gospel account “written in public for all to see” and calls us to question what sort of story we are telling. He encourages us to abandon the story of how our inner longings push us to consume more and more, and adopt a story of finding a place in the presence of God and the community of believers.

I’d recommend Enough to those who are wondering if there is a different way to follow Jesus that just doesn’t rubberstamp the culture. This is a book for those who want to live redemptively but who have no idea where to begin. Will does a good job in providing a biblical guideline for how we can start to rethink our interactions with others and with the world and live in a way that makes the term “Christ-follower” mean something tangible.

The basic premise of the book is that the future of the church is in its global non-white manifestations, but that the church is currently being held back by its captivity to white Western systems of thought. While some are lamenting the decline of Christianity in America, they fail to realize that it is only in white America that it is in decline. Minority populations are on the rise. By 2050 it is predicted that the majority of U.S. residents will be non-white, and most of them are Christians with strong churches and faith traditions. If the church is to survive, those who hold power must recognize and give up the ways white Western culture has influenced the church and instead look to other cultural expressions of faith for leadership, church structure, and healing for the church.

I found the first part of the book to be a fair exploration of how white Western culture has co-opted Christianity and the harm that it has caused. It is true that the church often reflects more of Western individualism than the values of community found in scripture. The author blames this lack of focus on community for the church’s failure to respond to social problems, and the overemphasis on personal sin and guilt for the lack of corporate shame for similarly sinful actions. This focus on individual sin is what has allowed corporate sins like racism to go unchecked in the church for so long – there is no communal structure for dealing with communal sin. Similarly the author writes on how the American dream has become confused with biblical standards. This has led to consumer churches and materialism as a measure of success in the church. The church growth movement and megachurches are given as the prime example of how far churches have sold themselves out to this white Western worldview.

The author argues that having the church held captive to this worldview not only hurts the church by promoting non-biblical values, but it promotes a cultural imperialism masquerading as biblical theology. When Western forms of the faith are presented as the only valid form of faith, then the gospel fails to be contextualized into ways other cultures can truly understand it. They are forced instead to adopt white Western culture in order to be Christian. People also fail to realize the diversity of the church – focus on the decline of white Christianity while ignoring the growth of Christianity worldwide. We miss out on the multitude of expressions of church and theology that have much to offer and teach all people of faith. The author says that we cannot truly learn from those just like us.

To break this captivity and heal the church from the harm caused by Western dominance the author insists that people must submit to learning from those different than them. For too long white people have had the “privilege” to ignore the others, and to have our theology and experience lifted up as primary. This privilege must be confronted and whites lay down all of our power for the status quo to ever change. If we do not give up that power and learn from other cultures then we are not missionaries for Christ, but simply cultural colonialists. To that end the author provides example of the ways ethnic churches function as ideals to emulate. He stresses living in community – giving aid to each other, celebrating with each other, and sharing true sorrows together. He also suggests that second-generation English-speaking immigrants like himself are the best choice to led the church of tomorrow. People like him straddle two worlds and have had the liminal journeying experience that can help transition the church away from its captivity to a more holistic perspective. The book concludes with the three-fold action plan of the church needing to confess its sin of white Western captivity and imperialism, submit itself to the spiritual authority of non-whites, and then finally live into the diverse community the Bible speaks of.

So for the most part I agree with the author. The church has been held captive and has caused serious harm because of that. All Christians should recognize that and those who have propagated and benefited from it repent. The diversity of the church should be recognized and white people should make the effort to learn from and to submit to people of other races. The racism in the church cannot be healed unless power is truly shared and whites stop trying to “reach-out” or “serve” the Other, but instead submit to the Other. I agree with all that and think that message is why this book is important for all Christians to read.

But I have my issues as well. The most basic being that I disagree with the author’s assumption that all cultures deserve respect and a voice – expect white Western culture. He spends a long time discussing why white Western culture is bad, but gives very little reason why other cultures should be accepted excepting the fact that they are not white or Western. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he doesn’t think that white Western culture is the only culture that has let cultural setting influence its worldview and interpretation of the bible. But at times I wasn’t so sure since white Western culture was always presented as captive and evil, and all other cultures as free and good. I think this book is going to be ignored or condemned simply for that assumption of the author’s. No matter how evil or misguided a culture has been, to write them off as utterly unworthy of respect (when they are your target audience) is not going to do much for advancing your cause. I understand the need to be harsh and to make readers uncomfortable, but to dismiss an entire race isn’t fair.

Similarly I really wish more time had been given to exploring the positive ways other cultures contribute to Christian identity. The main example that he gave, that of a Korean immigrant church, did little to capture my imagination as a reader. I am sold on his idea that we need multiethnic churches and that we need to learn from all voices. But then his example was of a single-language, single-culture church that separates itself from the outside world to keep its cultural identity strong. The community he describes in that church is wonderful – but I’ve seen the same thing in emerging or even rural Southern (generally racist) churches. If the church he was describing was all white and existed to keep that identity strong he would have (rightly) labeled it racist and imperialist. And while I understand the need for minority voices to preserve identity amidst a majority culture, his example didn’t persuade me of his message. At the end of the day I wanted a little more than “because they are not white” as reason why listening to and learning from ethnic Christian voices is a good thing. Like I said, I agree with the author’s conclusions, but he might face trouble with other readers with such weak examples.

Then there was my issue with his take on the emerging church. It was really bad timing that I read this book during my EVDC09 trip where I got to witness the diversity and community of the emerging church. While the author generally was kind and thoughtful in his critique of the white Western church, when it came to his take on emerging Christianity, his tone changed dramatically. He became angry and accusatory, calling our very existence offensive. He claimed our use of the term “emerging’ is offensive since ethnic churches are the only ones truly emerging these days. He was appalled by the number of emerging books published since there are by far more Korean churches out there than emerging churches and there are far fewer books on Korean Christianity. He was offended that a book he contributed to wasn’t featured on the Emergent Village website. And after stating over and over again that the failing of the Western church is its individuality, he criticizes the emerging church because it is communal and local which leads to all its members looking alike. He claims that all of us disgruntled evangelicals when we left our churches should not have continued the white Western captivity of the church by starting the emerging church, but should simply have joined ethnic churches instead. That statement really bothered me because it turned his argument into less of a call for diversity and embracing many voices, and more of a hatred of all things white. I am just as uncomfortable in the captive church world he describes as he is, but he can’t get past the color of my skin to allow that my disagreements with churches and my affinity to the emerging church might be about ideology more than race. But what really disturbed me was the author’s use of a blog post a friend of mine wrote from which he concludes that leaders in the emerging church don’t care enough to discuss racial issues. If he had bothered to get the full story behind that post and explore the context it was written in and responded to, he would have perhaps not so erroneously misrepresented the emerging church. But he didn’t bother to do that research and now has made very false claims about me and my friends (not by name, but I recall the post in question very well). Perhaps the angry anti-emerging undertone to the book is based on the “outsider” feeling I wrote about recently. Perhaps those of us emerging insiders aren’t doing all that we can to give up power and learn from others. But we are trying, and in truth agree with much of what is in this book. I just wish the author wasn’t so eager to condemn us (his potential supporters and allies) and write us off simply because some of us are white.

Okay so this turned out to be an insanely long review. At least from that, you can probably tell that this book is engaging and contains a lot to chew on. Even with my issues with it, I highly recommend others read it. It deals with issues that the church has to address. It is harsh and it is uncomfortable (sometimes extremely and needlessly so in my opinion), but that discomfort can lead to change. The church needs change – it must change if it truly wants to represent the Kingdom. The Next Evangelicalism is a good wake-up call for how we need change. I just hope that the message can be heard within this sometimes angry and extreme vessel.

I reviewed the book here recently – but what I love about it (besides its honesty and humor) is how it admits lies fed to moms and encourages us to live into the person God created us to be – even as a mom. And this book isn’t just for moms – but is a good perspective on parenting for dads, grandparents, pastors, teachers, and whoever might encounter parents regularly.

So if you would like to win a copy just leave a comment here by the end of Sunday April 12. One of the comments will then be selected (in a super secret scientific system created by my four year old) as the lucky winner. And if you would rather not just leave a “hi, I want a book” comment, I invite you share what you think are some of the identity struggles parents face these days.

Happy commenting, and good luck.

And if you are really observant, or just really want to increase your chances of winning the book, you’ll notice that we have the same offer up at both the Emerging Parents and Emerging Women blogs.

The pervasive theme in the book is the power of love to bring about healing. Over and over the women confess that they had never felt loved or accepted by anyone until they came to the Magdalene community. This love is demonstrated in the principles of their order. One rule is that of proclaiming original grace – to look at each person’s journey beginning not with original sin but with original grace. The community uses the thistle as a symbol of this love. Generally seen as an unwanted weed, it is the one flower that grows on the streets where these women walk. As one woman wrote – “there were no weeds in Eden. Even the thistle was loved by God. I can see life in a thistle and how God created life in me.” (p.68)

Too often in the church we despise women who have lived lives like the women at Magdalene. Our fascination with sexual sin forces us to otherize even those who have been abused sexually. Our rejection and inability to offer unconditionally healing love though objectifies these women just as much as those who buy and sell her. I was touched to read how the simple acts of the Magdalene community connected with the hurt and broken women. For some it was the offer of a meal or a bag of toiletries, for others a living room with soft chairs or a kitchen with pots and pans, for others it was someone being willing to brush the knots out of their hair. It took some of these women years and multiple attempts to accept the healing offered to them, but they were never given up on or forced to heal on a timeline. They were loved and offered the benefits of community as they were – and it was that acceptance that made the difference in the long run.

The book is a quick read, but it has lasting impact as the stories of these women challenge the standard reaction of the church to “wayward women.” Just hearing their stories forces us to change our perspective. To move past our preoccupation with sin and respond instead with abundant grace.

Many of these women have been able to re-enter the world and develop job skills through the non-profit business Thistle Farms which makes natural bath and body products. You can follow their stories at their blog The Voices of Thistle Farms.